Le Pere Noel Est une Ordure

Political incorrectness toward Christmas, Christian charity, and gender-bending informs this lively 1982 farce about workers at a suicide hotline colliding with various desperate eccentrics on Christmas Eve. Director Jean-Marie Poire wrote the script in collaboration with most of the major actors—Josiane Balasko, Marie-Anne Chazel, Christian Clavier, Gerard Jugnot, Thierry Lhermitte, and Bruno Moynot—and their desire to be irreverent (the title translates as “Santa Claus Is a Bastard”) gets a mite monotonous. In French with subtitles. 88 min.
ByJonathan Rosenbaum